UL: Legalize NH's No. 2 cash crop

[KBCraig]

http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=Ronald+Fraser%3a+NH%27s+No.+2+cash+crop+would+greatly+help+the+state+if+it+were+legal&articleId=ab133723-2a9e-485d-9387-20a4f4543cc4

Ronald Fraser: NH's No. 2 cash crop would greatly help the state if it were legal

By RONALD FRASER
Commentary

ONCE A SMALL part of New Hampshire's farm economy, marijuana is now the state's No. 2 money crop. With an annual market value of $35.8 billion nationally, marijuana ranks ahead of corn and wheat crops combined as an American cash crop. As New Hampshire's congressional delegation helps piece together a new federal farm bill in Washington, they should consider how marijuana, long an agricultural outcast, would better serve the folks back home as a legal, regulated crop -- like tobacco.

A good starting point for this policy review is Marijuana Production in the United States (2006), a study by Dr. Jon Gettman, a regional economics expert and adjunct instructor at Shephard University.

"Despite intensive eradication efforts," says Gettman, "domestic marijuana production has increased tenfold over the last 25 years, from 2.2 million pounds in 1981 to 22 million pounds in 2006 . . . . and its proliferation to every part of the country demonstrates that marijuana has become a pervasive and ineradicable part of the national economy."

Currently marijuana use is discouraged through draconian law enforcement policies. Using crop eradication tactics, federal and state agents attempt to wipe out the annual marijuana crop, but they only reach about 8 percent of it, leaving the rest to enter a thriving underground marketplace. What is needed is a new policy capable of controlling not just a fraction of the marijuana crop, but one that effectively deals with the 92 percent now reaching marijuana buyers.

In 2006, New Hampshire's marijuana crop was valued at more than $10 million, behind the 2003-2005 average for the state's leading cash crop, hay, at $16 million, and ahead of apples at $6 million. New Hampshire is not unique. In 12 states, marijuana is the top cash crop. In 17 more, it ranks second or third.

While marijuana is generally consumed in the state in which it is grown, Gettman calculates that production in Alabama, California, Tennessee, Kentucky, Hawaii, Washington, West Virginia, Arkansas and Alaska exceeds local needs and allows these states to become marijuana exporters.

Past studies suggest that new federal and state policies regulating rather than outlawing marijuana could benefit New Hampshire three ways:

Cutting costs: Taxpayers could save up to $36 million a year by no longer enforcing anti-marijuana laws.

Adding revenues: Tax revenues on marijuana sales could bring in up to $5 million per year.

Reducing sales to minors: High school students claim that marijuana is easier for them to get than liquor because it isn't regulated. Using tax revenues on marijuana sales, public officials could do a better job keeping marijuana out of the hands of minors and fund anti-drug education programs aimed at kids.

Comparing marijuana to other widely used drugs, Gettman writes, "Effective control over the production of tobacco and alcohol are prerequisites to both controlling access to those drugs by teenagers and the implementation of successful educational and discouragement campaigns."

Lobbyists for the big agri-businesses growing most of the nation's corn, cotton, rice and wheat will, as usual, use the new farm bill to hit up taxpayers for more than $11 billion in farm welfare payments each year. Marijuana growers, on the other hand, are prospering without handouts of any kind from Concord or Washington. That could be good news for our debt-riddled federal government and probably a welcome prospect in Concord as well.

What to do? The President's draft farm bill sent to Capitol Hill earlier this year includes, in a section titled "Specialty Crop Support," a request that Congress help the nation's potato farmers compete in the marketplace. If members of Congress declare the potato a "specialty" crop deserving help, they will surely agree that marijuana farmers also raise a specialty crop with marketplace hardships.

Here is an opportunity for Congress to begin easing marijuana into the agricultural mainstream by replacing a failed federal policy with one that actually controls the use of marijuana. This, in turn, will give state lawmakers in Concord and elsewhere the green light to do likewise.

Ronald Fraser, Ph.D., writes on public policy issues for the DKT Liberty Project, a Washington-based civil liberties organization. Write him at: fraserr@erols.com.

[srqrebel]

This scares me.  What is being suggested here would give the State iron-grip control over marijuana production and commerce.  Right now, the black market for marijuana thrives precisely because the ban makes it a lucrative enterprise for small time growers everywhere.  If the plant was merely regulated instead of banned, large gov't-submissive corporations would flood the market with inexpensive, mass-produced leaf -- and the low profit margin would make it undesirable for small time growers to risk the severe sanctions (similar to the sanctions that exist for illegal production and sale of liquor and tobacco).

It would effectively lock in place the State's control over this segment of the market.  Once that happens, the State would be loathe to release its effective grip on it, and full legalization would never occur (as long as the State exists).  I happen to see that as a giant step in the wrong direction.

[Lloyd Danforth]

Market forces would ensue to make up for the deficiencies you describe.

[d_goddard]

I far prefer freedom to regulation... but I far prefer regulation to outright prohibition. And I'll take what I can get.

[J’raxis 270145]

The question is what's better: Outright prohibition, or converting the treatment of marijuana to be equivalent to the treatment of alcohol and tobacco.

I think in the short-term, the latter is preferable to the former (and a much more realistic goal than outright legalization with zero regulation). We can then concentrate on de-regulating it, as part of the larger fight to get the government out of the "sin tax" business on all three products.

[Fluff and Stuff]

It would effectively lock in place the State's control over this segment of the market.  Once that happens, the State would be loathe to release its effective grip on it, and full legalization would never occur (as long as the State exists).  I happen to see that as a giant step in the wrong direction.

That is not true.  Look at beer.  I think in 1978 Carter allowed people to make their own beer again.  So, 50 years after pot is legalized, maybe people will be allowed to grow it

[Lloyd Danforth]

I hope you washed your hands Denis

[Fragilityh14]

I far prefer freedom to regulation... but I far prefer regulation to outright prohibition. And I'll take what I can get.

I agree....also, I am sure there would still be black market marijuana and they would do less to enforce laws and there would be lesser penalties?


Great Article ^_^

[Barterer]

Along the same lines, did you guys see this article in Reason magazine.  In a nutshell it says alcohol prohibition did not end because government officials gave a damn about personal freedom or realized that prohibition is futile.  It was because of the loss of revenue caused by the depression.  They figured alcohol was a juicy target for taxation.  So I guess the lesson is, starve the beast and you'll get more freedom, but realize they're going to milk it as much as they can.  Well at least the penalties for tax evasion are generally lower than for defying drug laws..

[J’raxis 270145]

Along the same lines, did you guys see this article in Reason magazine.  In a nutshell it says alcohol prohibition did not end because government officials gave a damn about personal freedom or realized that prohibition is futile.  It was because of the loss of revenue caused by the depression.  They figured alcohol was a juicy target for taxation.  So I guess the lesson is, starve the beast and you'll get more freedom, but realize they're going to milk it as much as they can.  Well at least the penalties for tax evasion are generally lower than for defying drug laws..

Well, then this is the way to approach it—you want legalization for your own personal freedom, but when presenting the argument to politicians, beat on the "it'll make more money for the government" drum.